It appears that Adobe are under extreme pressure to provide new camera raw support when high end camera models like the Canon 5D Mk IV are introduced into the market.

I think this pressure to appease users that purchase new camera models as soon as they are released is compromising the testing of new features and bug fixes, as evidenced by the problems and new bugs that get introduced with each and every update.

A possible solution to alleviate this issue is to provide updates for Camera Raw support and Lens Profiles with their own updates, since these two issues no not normally create problems.

Updates for Bug fixes and New Features can then be released when they have been fully tested and not released prematurely.

As far as I am aware the camera profiles and lens profiles are installed into their own specific folders and are shared by Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw.

Surely Adobe should be able to store them online and users download the ones they need as they are available and place them in the appropriate folder.

A better idea would be to do an update check when LR is launched and download and install the new camera and lens profiles "automatically." Since the profile file size is small it should have very little impact on the time to launch LR. This is in fact what antivirus and malware programs do to insure "definitions" for new viruses are installed on a timely basis. A Preferences option can be added to allow disabling the "automatic update" check if desired to eliminate any additional launch delay.

The addition of the camera supports (and lens support in a lesser extent) usually involves source code changes to parse the camera metadata and calibrate certain raw processing params. Even if Lightroom ships no new features/camera/lens support, the underlying platform (macOS/Windows), drivers are shifting and hardwares are evolving. Lr needs to keep up. It is not easy. But your main points are well taken. The team strives to do its best for our customers.

"compromising the testing of new features and bug fixes, as evidenced by the problems and new bugs that get introduced with each and every update." It would help us if you could point to problems/bugs referred here. Also please up vote bugs you want to be prioritised. I would like to assure you that we have good quality checks in place and if any issue got missed, we would sort it out soon.

Simon, thank you for the quick reply to this request. It was suggested at a post on the LR Forum that if camera manufacturers supported in-camera DNG file format new camera would be supported immediately. That meaning the new camera DNG file could be edited with the current version of LR without waiting for Adobe to provide support for the new camera model.

You say:

"The addition of the camera supports (and lens support in a lesser
extent) usually involves source code changes to parse the camera
metadata and calibrate certain raw processing params. Even if Lightroom
ships no new features/camera/lens support, the underlying platform
(macOS/Windows), drivers are shifting and hardwares are evolving. Lr
needs to keep up. It is not easy."

This would also seem to indicate that Adobe may need to make changes to the source code or drivers to support new camera DNG files. Is that correct?